Gathering preliminary information

You’ll want to note the following basic information before posing your more indepth questions:

• The organization’s name

• Its location

• Number of years in business

• Number of employees

• The product or service sold

• The challenges faced

• Who the competitors are

In addition, you need to determine who the decision-maker is and whether you will be dealing directly with that person throughout the project. Dealing with the decision-maker—in other words, the person or committee who has the final say over the company’s brand identity—isn’t as critical during the information-gathering stage as it is when you present your ideas. We’ll talk more about this in Chapter 8.

When working with larger organizations, it will be likely that your point of contact is an employee, rather than the CEO or marketing director. This person will help you to gather all the necessary information to be included in the design brief. Later in the process, he most likely will introduce you to the decision-maker or a committee. But for now, the focus is on information gathering.